[Massad Ayoob, noted firearms instructor and prolific author, posted this yesterday on his Backwoods Home Magazine blog, "Massad Ayoob on Guns." The hyperlinks are mine.]
And it happens again...
Shortly after the clock ticks into the early morning hours of July 20 during a midnight movie premier at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, a mass murderer opens fire. A dozen or more dead, dozens more wounded, and practically by the time responding officers arrive the anti-gunners are already at their keyboards choreographing their traditional dance in the blood of innocent victims. One, CNN's resident Pommie priss -- who has already long since proven himself totally clueless as to the real-world dynamics of violence -- twitters that guns should be 100,000 times harder to access.
Maybe jobs as public-opinion-forming talking heads should be 100,000 times harder to get, as well. By the way, the "Pommie" reference is nothing against the British in general. The pragmatic Brits I know are aware that they have living countrymen who remember when England begged American gun owners to ship them hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns for their civilians to use as last ditch weapons against the expected Nazi land invasion. It was the Brits themselves who coined POME (Prisoner Of Mother England) to define their brothers and sisters who evinced the mentality we see in the commentator in question.
Overlooked by most is a point discovered by famed Constitutional lawyer Don Kates: the theater in question forbade firearms inside. They themselves made it impossible for even one good person in the theater to draw a lawfully-carried handgun and put a bullet through the monster's brain, to stop the horror and shortstop the tragedy.
Once again, we see that "gun free zones" are hunting preserves for psychopaths who prey on humans.
[Amen, Mas -- amen.]
[This was posted by a Facebook friend last night. It echoes "Here's your sign," which appeared on KintlaLake Blog almost a year ago.]
I'm sorry to be posting this so soon after the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado -- please know that my heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones -- but I'm angry.
I'm angry because, according to news reports, the movie theater where 12 people were murdered and another 59 wounded had a "No Guns Allowed" policy. It may well have posted signs like this one.
This sign kills.
Make no mistake -- even if one or more moviegoers had been lawfully carrying firearms in that theater this morning, there's no guarantee that they could've stopped the shooter or reduced the number of casualties. But we do know two things for sure.
First of all, permitting lawful carry just might've given those theater patrons a fighting chance. More important, signs like this -- and the policies they represent -- advertise to the world that the facility on which they're posted is full of unarmed people, potential victims, fish in a barrel.
It makes no sense.
Today's massacre was an act of evil, carried out by a madman. Everyone knows that madmen are shadows and evil is a fact of life, and yet some among us still suggest that we can prevent such violence by restricting or outright banning some or all firearms -- leaving innocents outgunned at best, disarmed at worst.
That's the equivalent of posting this sign on our houses and on our cars, tattooing it on our foreheads. And it makes no sense.
Madmen and criminal predators always -- and I mean always -- will find a way to get 'hold of the tools of their trade, and incidents like the one in Colorado this morning demonstrate that they sure as hell don’t obey laws and policies, much less signs. Disarming law-abiding citizens by statute, then, can have only one result.
Innocent people will die. When will we learn that?
I see signs like this on businesses every day. Uncomfortable as I am to be entering an "unarmed victims zone," sometimes I patronize the establishment anyway, rationalizing my choice in one way or another.
Not any more. It makes no sense.
"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure -- and in some cases I have -- that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."
(Lt. Col. John Dean "Jeff" Cooper)
"We are steadily asked about the age at which to teach young people to shoot. The answer to this obviously depends upon the particular individual; not only his physical maturity but his desire.
"Apart from these considerations, however, I think it important to understand that it is the duty of the father to teach the son to shoot.
"Before the young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills he should acquire, apart from any state-sponsored activity. Certainly the youngster should be taught to swim, strongly and safely, at distance. And young people of either sex should be taught to drive a motor vehicle, and if at all possible, how to fly a light airplane. I believe a youngster should be taught the rudiments of hand-to-hand combat, unarmed, together with basic survival skills.
"The list is long, but it is a parent's duty to make sure that the child does not go forth into the world helpless in the face of its perils.
"Shooting, of course, is our business, and shooting should not be left up to the state."
(Lt. Col. John Dean "Jeff" Cooper)
The other day I happened upon an essay entitled, "The Gun as a Weapon of Education," written by one Edward Cave and published in a 1918 edition of The Outlook.
The headline was intriguing, certainly, but the subhead hooked me:
"Lessons from the Long Trail that Goes 'Way Around Beyond the Bleak and Barren Mountains of Mere Marksmanship to the Happy Valley of Sportsmanship"
Knowing of the author's connection to Scouting, I scanned the piece for a mention. These lines jumped out at me:
"A couple of years before the Germans turned loose their war, for eight months I disturbed the pious and pacific calm of the National headquarters of the Boy Scouts with the rude idea that Baden-Powell, the British soldier who originated the Boy Scout idea, meant their slogan, 'Be Prepared,' to imply prepared to carry a gun, not a harp."
That, my friends, is absolutely priceless. Cave continued:
"Despite instructions, I drilled my troop of Boy Scouts, and drilled them hard. Since then I have had the satisfaction of vindication on both counts. In addition, I have had the satisfaction of helping a good many thousands of Boy Scouts and plain ordinary boys to learn how to shoot a .22 rifle properly. I joined the National Rifle Association of America and the United States Revolver Association, and recently induced the former to encourage boys to take up target-shooting outdoors with the .22 rifles."
Cave's assertion that he influenced "a good many thousands of Boy Scouts and plain ordinary boys" was no idle boast -- in 1915 he published Boy Scout Marksmanship, a seminal work on the subject and a valuable primer for boys within and beyond the uniformed ranks.
Later in the text, I chuckled at Cave's expressed intent to "square up some old accounts" -- that is, to needle certain types of people that he found particularly annoying. Specifically:
"Folks who are afraid of a gun, but otherwise all right.
"Folks who will not let a big-enough boy have a gun.
"Folks who are fond of roast chicken -- and, if necessary to get it, would chase a pet rooster till red in the face and chop his head off -- yet raise objection to all hunting, and are classified among wild life conservationists as sentimentalists.
"Pacifists -- the worst of the lot."
That passage is another keeper, for sure. Cave closed his engaging essay with this:
"Far away on the horizon you see what at first appears like a fog in some distant valley. It is the smoke pall above some city, and it reminds you, hunter that you are, of the vaporings of the city men you know who can never stand where you do, nor even rise above their droll little chimneys, yet presume to force upon their fellows their narrow conception of a world outlook.
"Poor little wall-warped and roof-stunted boys who were never allowed to have a gun!"
"The Gun as a Weapon of Education" is a fun read -- playful and unapologetic, relevant despite its advanced age. I recommend it.
Long before the Winchester Junior Rifle Corps was launched in 1918, "schoolboy" rifle-marksmanship programs were conducted by the Boy Scouts, the National Rifle Association, the Public Schools Athletic League of New York City and various other organizations.
Remington, as far as I know, didn't push a club of its own during those years. Its advertising took a different tack as well.
"War Department Offers Rifle Shooting Medals to Boys," from a 1917 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, is an example of Remington's approach. It used the lure of government-sanctioned marksmanship awards, along with the credibility of the Boy Scouts and the NRA, essentially to soft-pedal the brand. An excerpt from the copy:
"Another thing -- you don't have to shoot any special make of rifle and ammunition to compete for these National Medals. You can use any make of .22 caliber rifle and .22 short cartridges.
"We hope, of course, that you will select Remington UMC. Certainly you will, if you ask advice from men who know."
Two years later the W.J.R.C. was on the scene. Remington adjusted its pitch accordingly.
"News Indeed for the Young Man and his .22" popped up in a 1919 issue of Collier's. The ad's subhead -- "Individual Shooters Recognized by N.R.A. -- No need to join a Club" -- was an appeal to youthful independence and a shot across Winchester's bow. Later, this:
"Now don't hesitate to write us just because your rifle or ammunition is not Remington UMC. You don't even have to tell us what make you do shoot -- now. We'll take a chance that you will come to Remington UMC as your skill develops and you become more critical about your arms and ammunition."
And so the two companies exchanged volleys, vying for young shooters, their skirmish lasting nearly a decade. Which one prevailed?
Remington is still around -- it's the oldest company in the U.S. still making its original product, the oldest continuously operating manufacturer on the continent, the only American company that makes both guns and ammo here in the U.S. and the largest domestic manufacturer of long guns.
Winchester, which always struggled, sadly (or mercifully) is gone.
The W.J.R.C. had a successful nine-year run before it was absorbed by the NRA. Its descendant, the NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program, continues to thrive.
My fascination with vintage ads, especially those promoting firearms and outdoors gear, continues. I'm especially drawn to depictions of the Winchester Model 67, of course, like the 1956 ad that I posted on Friday, and to the Winchester Junior Rifle Corps.
First up this morning is "Add a Colt to Your Motoring Equipment," clipped from a 1922 issue of Life magazine.
In the early days of the automobile Americans were learning that their new-found mobility, however rudimentary by today's standards, quickly could transport them "beyond the reach of help." What Colt called "the growing menace of auto bandits and thieves" was a relatively fresh concern for the motoring masses.
The other ad I'll share today, "Don't envy the fellows who own rifles," comes from a 1918 issue of Arms and the Man, forerunner of the National Rifle Association's American Rifleman magazine.
Even though the readership of Arms and the Man was predominantly adult males, clearly Winchester's aspirational pitch also drew a bead on young boys. This line spoke to both audiences:
"Every boy wants to own a rifle, and every boy who has the right stuff in him should have one."
What American boy, after all, doesn't believe that he has "the right stuff"? And what self-respecting father would admit that he's raising a boy who lacks it?
The two-pronged approach is reminiscent, it seems to me, of another Winchester ad that I posted here last year.
Naturally, the ad includes the W.J.R.C. spiel. It's interesting to note that the program was taken over by the NRA in 1926.
(That ad, which featured the Model 67 just a few years before Winchester pulled the plug on its 26-year production run, appeared in the April 1956 issue of Field & Stream magazine.)
"If sales figures mean anything, the faster a .22 can shoot and the more rounds its magazine can hold, the more popular it is with American hunters. Just why that's so is kind of puzzling, considering the animals hunted, the ranges involved and types of shots normally offered. Most targets are relatively small; more are taken under 50 yards than over; and the majority are standing or sitting rather than moving.
"Admittedly, when a cottontail dashes hellbent for the nearest cover, a repeating rifle makes it possible to correct an improper lead or make up for poor range estimation and put a quick second or third shot where it counts. At least, that's so theoretically. From my own experience, and from what I have observed in the field, follow-up shots, especially those rapped out in short order, seldom put meat in the pot. My second .22 sporter taught me that many decades ago.
"My first was a Model 67 Winchester, a single-shot bolt action with a 27-inch barrel and open sights. If the first shot missed, the bolt had to be opened (ejecting the spent hull), a new cartridge pushed into the chamber manually, the bolt closed again -- and then the striker knob had to be pulled back to cock the action.
"Slow that action might have been, but memory says the rifle was deadly accurate. Of course, boyhood memories tend to mellow with time, but I remember quite clearly that whenever some serious shooting was in the offing, my buddies preferred to borrow my rifle instead of depending on their own.
"That old Winchester also taught me that if I took a few extra seconds aligning sights and target, there usually wasn't any need for a second shot."
(From Al Miller's "Rimfires" column in the September-October 1994 issue of Rifle magazine)
(Adapted from the now-iconic "Keep Calm and Carry On" propaganda poster, produced during World War II by Great Britain's Ministry of Information. For some entertaining background on the poster, click here and here. To create your own parody, click here.)
If the name "Charles L. Worley" doesn't ring a bell, maybe you've seen his work, a portion of which went viral on YouTube recently. Worley is pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina, and on May 13th this is what he preached to his mindless flock:
"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. Build a great big large fence -- 50 or 100 mile long -- put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out. And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce!"
To be sure, that kind of garbage spews from Christian pulpits each and every Sunday all across this country. It's not only bigoted and antithetical to Liberty, in Worley's case it's downright idiotic.
"...In a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce!"
Think about it. Worley sure didn't.
Problem is, stupid shit often sticks. Worley's hateful words, while they probably won't result in internment camps for gays, have a large and enthusiastic audience. They will have an effect -- count on that.
I mean, why do you think New York City is the way it is?
Now here's another name for you: "John R. Thompson" -- restaurant baron (whites only, please) and leader of a 1920s crusade to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.
In 1921, Thompson took out ads in newspapers nationwide -- one of which got the attention of Horace Kephart -- issuing this challenge:
"I will pay $1,000 to anyone who will give one good reason why the revolver manufacturing industry should be allowed to exist in America and enjoy the facilities of the mails."
His rationale?
"The revolver always has been and still is a menace to any community. It merely is a weapon for the thug, the holdup man and the murderer. It is impossible to turn to any useful purpose, as one uses the rifle or shotgun. Where would our holdup man, doing such a thriving business in Chicago today, be, if he could not get hold of a revolver? He couldn't very well go round packing a shotgun or a rifle, and if he carried only a piece of lead pipe or club the victim would at least have a fighting chance."
Obviously -- to me, anyway, and probably to you -- Thompson's theory of "disarmament" is arrogant and completely unhitched from reality. It's strikingly similar to Worley's gay-camps-with-electric-fences proposal in its utter silliness.
We shouldn't dismiss Thompson, though, merely because his campaign is long-dead and his ideas were inarguably dumb -- exactly the same pitch is being hurled by today's gun-control crowd.
Stupidity is always a threat to Liberty and, thanks to citizens who don't take time to think, it never goes out of style.
[Thompson ad from the June 9, 1921 Concordia Sentinel (Louisiana).]
New York's insidious Sullivan Law, enacted in 1911 and discussed in yesterday's post, is still on the books. It was introduced and debated [sic] virtually unnoticed by the citizenry, thanks to a corrupt sponsor and sleepy legislators easily duped by "common good" rhetoric.
Once passed, the Sullivan Act had an immediate and obvious effect on law-abiding New Yorkers. Worse, it triggered a wave of similar bills in state legislatures nationwide.
Protests against such repressive and patently unconstitutional laws were mustered, for the most part, too late to stem legislative tide. The August 1912 issue of Field and Stream, for example, led its editorial page with "National Disarmament." A few excerpts:
"The so-called 'anti-pistol laws,' all of them modeled more or less upon the notorious Sullivan Law passed in New York State in 1911, have become a veritable epidemic, disarmament bills having been presented in forty-seven states, culminating in the drastic Simms bill introduced at Washington prohibiting the sale or use of firearms for any purpose or under any conditions whatever.
"It is high time that the sportsmen's magazines, revolver, rifle and shotgun clubs, and all to whom either the grooved-bore or the smooth-bore is a means of sport and recreation, got together in a campaign which would show the nation the real sentiment of the people with regard to these disarmament measures, and make it unsafe, politically, for any demagogue or cheap politician with a black-mailing scheme up his sleeve to introduce such bills into our State and national legislatures."
"The actual result of the Sullivan Law so far has been an unprecedented wave of crime in the big cities; bank messengers were robbed in automobiles with impunity as the burglars knew they were not armed; the number of murders have increased over the preceding year and at the same time respectable citizens, no matter whether citizens of New York State or not, were unable even so much as to transport a revolver across New York City without becoming a felon and liable to fine and imprisonment."
Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that an outdoor-recreation magazine would criticize Sullivan Law, but Field and Stream wasn't alone in objecting. In its May 24, 1913 edition, The New York Times ran "A Change in the Pistol Law." From the Times editorial:
"That the concealed weapon law has not worked as well as was expected, or at any rate hoped, by those of us who commended it in principle, if not in all its details, is a fact too obvious for denial.
"Criminals are as well armed as ever, in spite of the sternness with which the law has been applied to a few of them, while there has been a rather general impression among honest men, mistaken but none the less real, that they were wrongly deprived, if not of the means, at least of the right to have the means, for defending themselves and their property. And if the dealers in firearms are keeping the required record of their sales -- which seems doubtful -- we are not hearing of the promised good effects, and perhaps the worst consequence of the law is that many good citizens, as well as all bad ones, have defied or ignored it without suffering much from their consciences."
"...The rightness of having or carrying a pistol is not at all a matter of money, but wholly one of character and avowable need. Something very much like a natural instinct tells the honest householder that to make him ask anybody's permission to have a revolver in his bureau drawer, or even under his pillow, is a hardship, tinged with absurdity."
Both of those editorials were right on the facts and righteous in their intent, and yet Sullivan Law remains in force today. What's more, literally thousands of similar measures (and worse) have been enacted over the last century -- at the federal, state and local levels. Why?
We, like Americans a hundred years ago, don't understand what it means to be vigilant. We continue to elect our representatives based on affinity and identity, pandering and promises of pork, instead of demanding unequivocal defense of constitutional principles.
And when we do earn a victory, we spike the ball -- meanwhile, the enemies of Liberty draw up new plays to exploit our overconfidence.
The threats to our Second Amendment right never vanish, never diminish. Considering what's at stake, we can't relax, ever. Just ask a New Yorker what the price is for failing to be vigilant: Sullivan Law, 100 years and counting.
Guns magazine, which I've brought into KintlaLake Blog many times, produced its first issue in 1955. I find its evolution interesting, in part because it's been around almost exactly as long as I have.
Guns was marking its second year (and I my second month) when it published "Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" by William B. Edwards. This is how the piece was previewed in the editors' up-front column:
"'Why Not Have A Pro-Gun Law,' is possibly the longest article we have ever published. It may well be also the most important article we have ever published. The 'call to arms' which ends the story, urging all firearms enthusiasts to write to the Director of the [BATFE], to protest new revised federal regulations in the gun law field is a little like Paul Revere's 'one if by land, two if by sea.' Only now it isn't the 'British are coming,' it is the bureaucrats."
Nothing about that dates it to 55 years ago. Like other articles I've shared here -- notably Horace Kephart's "Arms for Defense of Honest Citizens" and "The Right to Bear Arms" three decades earlier -- it reminds us that today's Liberty-loving Americans aren't the first to battle those who seek to dismantle our constitutional rights.
Here's how "Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" begins:
"The anti-gun lawmakers are having a brisk season for 1957. With the practical nature of Andrew Volsteads and the subtlety of Carrie Nations they have attacked the root of all evil and the ills of mankind by the simple expedient of trying to take away all guns. Recently proposed Treasury regulations came close to this ideal; they could have destroyed the firearms industry and the shooting sport. Under the guise of protecting the people, these makers of rules who push anti-gun bills such as these are forging weapons, not into ploughshares, but into an iron collar of restraint, worthy of a fascist state. Year by year more anti-gun laws are proposed. Meanwhile, pro-gun collectors and shooters are mollified by the excuse 'these laws are thought up by well-meaning, innocent do-gooders.' Certainly a few anti-gun advocates may seem to be well-intentioned, but let's look at 'well meaning' legislators in the forefront of anti-gun legislation.
"Take a good look at genial, charming, personable 'Big Tim' Sullivan, who disarmed the citizens of crime-ridden New York in 1911 with the grandaddy of anti-gun laws, then went mad the following year and was confined. Says the biographical dictionary, 'Vice and crime were carefully organized in his territory and paid graft to his machine, as did many lines of legitimate business, including push-cart peddlers.... When charged with grafting, or partnership with crime and vice, he could rise in the [New York state] Assembly or on a campaign rostrum and, by telling the story of his tenement boyhood and the sacrifices of his mother, reduce even hardened political opponents to tears...."
"Big Tim was of the cloth of Adolph Hitler and the spellbinders of the ages. Election fights which stimulated the public pulse in those days hampered Big Tim's grasp on politics. So he pushed through a law requiring everyone in New York state to get a police permit to buy or possess a pistol or revolver. Sullivan knew he could control the police. This meant that when Sullivan's boys went on their ballot-box stuffing sprees, they could be reasonably sure of having no opposition. Big Tim was not a 'well-meaning legislator' in his pistol law ideas. The Sullivan law weakened the opposition, sweetened the Tammany kitty. Anti-gun bills are a popular stepping stone to political fame, and many in the anti-gun ranks share Big Tim's motives."
Notice that by the second paragraph the Guns article brings up New York State Senator Timothy "Big Tim" Sullivan and the Sullivan Act. There's a reason for that -- author Edwards knew that becoming familiar with the Sullivan Act was essential to readers' understanding of the insidious nature of gun control.
And it still is. A century after being enacted, Sullivan Law remains in force, oppressing citizens of (and visitors to) New York. As Michael A. Walsh wrote in the New York Post earlier this year:
"...Savor the irony of an edict written by a corrupt politician to save his bad guys from the electric chair’s now being used against law-abiding citizens from other states."
If we're to preserve our Second Amendment right, we must get acquainted with the history of threats against it. When we invoke the truism, "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns," we should be able to cite Big Tim Sullivan -- a crime boss who manipulated soft-headed fellow legislators into disarming law-abiding citizens, thus ensuring that his street gangs would have the upper hand.
"Why Not Have a PRO-Gun Law?" would be a good place to start our history lessons. For a pdf version of the September 1957 issue of Guns magazine, click here. The lengthy article begins on page 22.
While casting about the 'Web over the last 20 years, I've noticed that finding what I'm looking for doesn't stop me -- often it only spurs me to search for something else. That's what happened last week, when I unearthed that January-February 2009 issue of Rifle magazine.
Thus encouraged, I began stalking an even older rag that's eluded me.
I posted "Back fifty-two to 'Fifty-nine" about 18 months ago, talking about the preparedness mindset and providing links to pdf versions of two issues of Guns magazine from 1959.
I also linked to a fascinating article from a 1958 issue of Guns. At the time I couldn't offer a pdf of the piece.
Now I can -- click here to download the August 1958 issue of Guns magazine. The article ".22's for Survival?" begins on pages 34 and 35, continuing on page 58. Even though 54 years have passed since its publication, I believe it's as useful now as it was provocative then.
Last year I lamented that Gil Sengel's excellent article on the history and development of the Winchester Model 67 had vanished from Google Books. Months of occasional (but persistent) cyber-sleuthing finally paid off -- I found the January-February 2009 issue of Rifle, which includes the article, on an ftp site.
To download the magazine in pdf format, right-click here and select "Save target as" or "Save link as." Open the file, flip to page 64 and start enjoying "Winchester Model 67: A Product of Another Era."
Savage Arms Company produced more than 200,000 copies of the diminutive Savage Automatic Pistol -- a.k.a. Model 1907 -- between 1908 and 1920. As I said in yesterday's post, the gun is remembered more for over-the-top advertising than for defensive prowess.
Consider this 1914 pitch, pulled from The Saturday Evening Post.
Again, let's take a closer look at the hyperbolic, chauvinistic copy:
Is Your Wife Helpless or Dangerous --
in these times when more idlers
make more burglars and brutes?
These times make more idlers. More idlers mean more Burglars and Brutes. Burglars and Brutes break your house; shock your wife into permanent hysteria and mark your children with a horrible fear for life.
A ten shot, easy-to-aim Savage Automatic converts your helpless wife into a dangerous defender of her children -- more dangerous to face than a mother grizzly bear.
Fathers, it is a serious duty in these times to arm your home by day and by night with a Savage Automatic -- the one arm which every Brute and Burglar fears. They fear its 10 lightning shots, 2 to 4 more than others; they fear the novice's power to aim it as easy as pointing your finger. Therefore take pains that you get the Savage -- the one the thugs fear.
As harmless as a cat around the house, because it is the only automatic that tells by glance or touch whether loaded or empty.
Take home a Savage today. Or at least send for free booklet, "If You Hear a Burglar," written by a famous detective.
Allow me to state the obvious -- a quick flip through any modern-day gun magazine reveals that manufacturers' approach to women has changed dramatically over the last 98 years. Ads now speak directly to women, acknowledging their role as gun owners and empowered (not "helpless") defenders of life and Castle. That's a good thing.
Knowing Mrs. KintlaLake as I do, it's also a sure thing.
Back in the early 1900s, venerable Savage Arms produced a small-frame semi-automatic pistol chambered in .32. The marketing angle was an appeal to women in need of protection but afraid of firearms.
Most of the ads for this gun were either hyperbolic or chauvinist -- and usually both -- but this one takes the prize for lousy advice.
Here's a taste of the copy:
Shoot the First Shots Out of the Window!
That is the very best thing to do when you find a burglar in the house, says Wm. P. Sheridan, famous detective, in the Woman's World Magazine. Arouse the whole neighborhood with shots! These first two or three shots will cause neighbors to jump to the 'phone and call the police.
Save the rest of your shots in case the burglar attacks you.
Yes, you read that right -- exactly 100 years ago, encouraging an inexperienced shooter facing an intruder to fire a few rounds out the window was considered a good idea. I know we're talking about deadly force and home defense here, but honestly, I can't help laughing.
Notice that the ad included an offer of even more such wisdom. By mail, for six cents, a reader could get a copy of The Tenderfoot's Turn (written, incidentally, by one Bat Masterson). Can you imagine?
"Could you answer a call for help, meet a criminal, handle him without danger to yourself? Unarmed, you'd be helpless. Armed, you could uphold law and order."
(From a 1922 issue of The Outlook magazine -- and no, buying a gun to "uphold law and order" isn't particularly sound advice.)
"The whole truth of this preparedness idea just hit me. For years I have carried insurance on my life, health, house and household goods. I have tucked away a comfortable nest egg in the bank to forestall a rainy day and financial reverses. And all this while I have kidded myself into thinking that this was all the protection that any husband and father could throw around his family.
"Defending the lives of my loved ones against the felonious attacks of prowling burglars -- this never occurred to me.
"There isn't a streak of yellow in me. I've never been called a coward in all my life. I just didn't give it a thought. I've been so busy with -- "
(From a 1917 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Now, as then, we can be sure that most Americans won't have this conversation with themselves and will not be prepared.)
